


To Narnian Ground

by nasimwrites



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/M, Post-Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Secret Baby, The Pevensies in England, The Problem of Susan, multiple POVs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21645307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasimwrites/pseuds/nasimwrites
Summary: A legacy takes shape, in three parts.
Relationships: Caspian/Lucy Pevensie
Comments: 17
Kudos: 111
Collections: Lucian Exchange 2019





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loveandrockmusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandrockmusic/gifts).



During those days, it felt like the _Dawn Treader_ wasn’t moving at all. The air felt still and quiet, and Lucy would have been convinced that they had anchored somewhere in this strange, flower-filled part of the seas if she couldn’t see the ripples in the water on either side. Everything about the sea felt expectant—like an orchestra poised to play the grand finale.

Lucy found herself climbing to the fighting-top more and more often. It was the quiet, and from there she could see the both the distant whiteness towards which they were headed, and watch the petals of the lilies shift back together in their wake, closing the dark green path of water through which the _Dawn Treader_ had come.

She still had a handful of the petals she had gathered in the boat they had lowered on that first day, when they hadn’t know what all the whiteness was, and she held them from time to time. They never seemed to wither. The soft scent sent a thrill up her spine, like a memory of days long past, when she had raced jaguars outside Cair Paravel, dug holes with moles, danced with Mr. Tumnus, in those early days of their reign.

It had been so long ago, and so much had happened since then—and yet it still felt like she hadn’t done nearly enough.

It was like this—sitting cross-legged on what had once been an intimidatingly high structure, and with a strange look in her eyes—that Caspian found her.

“I wonder,” he said, once he was sitting beside her—and there were always pauses in between their words, these days, because it seemed that time had ceased to matter, and the pleasure of thinking of words was just as great as speaking them, and just as great as listening, and so no one ever grew tired. “If, were we to sail long enough, we might sail straight through and appear in your world once more.”

“The path between worlds is marked by flowers?” Lucy smiled. “That sounds like something Aslan would do.”

“You’ve been up here for a while,” he said, looking at her with some amusement. “I’ve been in need of the solitude of the fighting-top and waiting for my turn.” He raised a hand at her look of concern. “When I realized it was you, however, I thought I’d come spoil _your_ solitude instead.”

“You aren’t,” she said. “Am I spoiling yours?

He smiled, and lay down, his golden hair spread out on the boards. He looked sleepy, almost, and yet his eyes gleamed with a marvelous energy. “You could never.”

She flopped down to join him, closing her eyes. The sky was nearly blinding white, the sun so bright that she imagined the _Dawn Treader_ was leading them closer to it, somehow. She had to close her eyes to think. It occurred to her, as she did so, that she had not rested like this in what felt like many days. “Caspian, have you slept at all?”

“No,” he said, as if it had only just occurred to him also. “Have you?”

“No. I feel…”

“Like running, or climbing, or fighting a great battle?” Caspian continued for her. She opened her eyes slightly to squint at him. His eyes were shining. “Like you _must_ see more?”

It was hard to describe how the sea of flowers around them made her feel—the buzzing vibration underneath her skin that never ceased for a minute, not unpleasant but full of anticipation for a conclusion that never seemed to come. Lucy closed her eyes again, if only to keep her confusing emotions inside herself. “Like the ship is too big to contain me.”

“Your heart, perhaps.” She could hear him smile.

They lay there in companionable silence. She could hear faint voices on the deck below, but most people spoke quietly these days. Edmund had taken to pacing slowly, and Eustace lay in his hammock for long periods of time— _thinking_ , he would tell people, when they wondered if he was ill, and they left him to it. Caspian had been the one to speak the most until now, ensuring everyone was well and all duties were being met… but now he was lying beside her, breathing in the scent of flowers.

Her eyes were still closed, but she could hear his breath, and the gentleness of his voice when he asked, “Do you miss your world, Lucy?”

She frowned a little, but that was one thing she was certain of. “No. When I’m here… it becomes very easy to forget. I can remember it, if I try, but if I were to stay here for years… well, I would forget it altogether.”

And she _had_ forgotten, once entirely, and now in brief moments. Sometimes, she wished she _could_ forget—because awaiting an ending she knew would come was almost a distraction from everything else.

“And when you go there, do you forget Narnia?”

Lucy turned her head, opened her eyes. Gazed into Caspian’s brown eyes as they came into focus, wide and piercing, as if he was trying to learn everything about her all at once.

“I’ve never let myself forget it.”

A pained look came over his expression—the first negative one she had seen in many days, since they had come to be surrounded by the lilies. He sighed and looked out at the blur of white in the distance. “Out here, it would be easy to forget Narnia… to forget I am King. I can imagine that this is my entire life: the _Dawn Treader,_ and my friends—Queen Lucy, especially.”

“And all the flowers.”

“And all the flowers.” Caspian agreed, smiling.

She rolled over and leaned on her elbows, pushing herself up slightly to gaze down at him. His hair was mussed and shining like a halo around his head, his jaw sharp against the soft white shirt he was wearing—very similar to the one she wore, which was his, anyway. Relaxed, his knightly body took on an entirely new shape than that of control and authority, and reminded her of an entirely new slew of feelings—feelings she had not had for many years, not since those last years of her reign in Cair Paravel—when she danced with dryads in the night, laughed and ran about the corridors of the palace, learned to worship other bodies in the shelter of trees—

She looked away and pressed her face to her hands, quietly taking a deep breath. Those had been different times, and she had seemed much older than she did now. Although she was not too young by Narnian standards—indeed, not too young even by English standards, if stories were to be believed—

“May I?”

She looked up. He had moved onto his side, impossibly close, now. He was so tall his bare feet barely fit within the fighting-top. His right hand was reaching towards the small pile of lily petals beside her.

Lucy nodded. He took a petal gently between his fingers, turning it over in his palm. As she watched him, she felt the thrill go through her again, until she was reaching for petals too, her hand beside his hand, her skin brushing against his. They may be monarchs in Narnia, yet there was nothing more Narnian than lying barefoot among petals, about the thrill of excitement that seemed to erase all fear of the future.

Caspian looked up into her eyes, and if he saw something there he did not flinch away. The two of them had always been comfortable together, after all—from leading an army together (however briefly) to swimming together, to sharing clothes and meals. He was far from a stranger, however distantly their lives had unfolded. And so, Caspian leaned closer, and the brightness of the world around them seem to envelop them almost more effectively than darkness, until he was the only thing in her field of vision, until she imagined she could feel the warmth of his heart pulsing beneath his thin shirt.

“I would sail like this forever,” Caspian told her, almost urgently. “Leave everything else behind. And just—”

His gaze shifted away from her eyes, moving to her lips. The hand that held a petal was lowered to the ground, and on impulse, Lucy grasped it. And perhaps she would later blame it on the dizzying scent of flowers and the disorienting length of the days, but she leaned forward and kissed the Narnian King, softly but firmly, intertwining her fingers with his.

He gasped slightly against her mouth, not so much surprised as breathless, and kissed her back, his other hand leaving his side to move her hair away from her face, to brush his thumb against her jaw. He smelled like the lilies and tasted like the lilies, but he felt like _Narnia_ —strong, beautiful, _inevitable_ —as she moved onto her back, lily petals in her hair, and he followed her.

After a few seconds he seemed to push himself away, hands shaking, although he did not move them away from her. There was a wild look of wonder in his eyes. On her back, hair spread out on the floorboards, Lucy felt slightly dizzy, but also oddly relieved, entirely _herself_.

So she pulled him down to her again, burying her face in his shoulder. He pressed his cheek against her hair, and the scent of lilies was dizzying.

“I feel that I can't stand much more of this,” he breathed, and she knew he meant all of it—the journey, the brightness, her body— “yet I don't want it to stop.”

Then he pressed another kiss to her temple and the sky seemed to grow brighter, until she had to close her eyes.

x

It was like living in a dream, and so, Lucy knew, it was doomed to end. Caspian had known too, but seeing his hopes dashed had taken an even harder toll on him. After his angry outburst and subsequent epiphany, he disappeared into the stern cabin, shaky and subdued, and with a firm nod of reassurance from Edmund, Lucy followed after him, her own heart shaking.

The sky was still a blinding white outside, the fragrance of the lilies wafting through the three windows that opened towards the ocean. Caspian was standing in the center of the cabin, his back to her. When he heard her, he moved as if to walk away, although the only other door was to his cabin—the one she had been sleeping in for months now.

"I will not have you see me like this, Lucy.”

"There’s no need to hide.”

He paced back and forth, hands clenched before him, the irrepressible energy of the days before now an uncontrollable nervousness. He had kicked off his shoes again, as if he meant to sit cross-legged on the bench, but had changed his mind.

Lucy could not help looking at the painting of Aslan over the door. It was just as she remembered it, beautiful and still—nothing more than a skilled painting. And yet it had meant so much more to Caspian, only a few moments ago, when Aslan had spoken through it and issued judgement. Lucy, Edmund and Eustace to Aslan’s Country—and possibly back to England—while all the others stayed behind.

Aslan’s will, she knew, could not be overruled.

She tore her gaze away from it and focused on the disheveled King before her. They could not leave Caspian like this—distraught and hopeless. Edmund could speak to him, but it would be hard on Caspian, who had always looked up to him, to face him after attempting abdication. And Eustace—well, Eustace certainly wouldn’t do. It had to be Lucy… even if strength in the face of this goodbye was yet a thing she had to find within herself.

"Lucy, I am a terrible King.” Caspian’s voice shook, and he turned to look at her with haunted eyes. “A King is meant to safeguard his country, to leave a legacy. Yet see how I have so eagerly attempted to throw it all away.”

“You have guided us wisely so far; a moment of weakness does not mean failure.”

He let out a mirthless laugh and sank down into a nearby bench, his voice heavy with self-hatred. “But it is worse than that. There is so much of me that longs to leave, to explore. When I embarked upon this journey, when I built the _Dawn Treader_ , did I truly set out for the sake of my father’s friends? Or was all this merely a means to justify my own escape from duty? To execute one grand distraction from my responsibilities in Narnia?”

Quietly, Lucy moved to sit down next to him. His head was bowed in shame. She pushed her conflicted thoughts away and looked to the Lion on the wall; to the certitude in its eyes.

"You were destined to come here regardless," she said, finally. "Or else, why would you have found us on the way? And you found your father’s men, and so many other marvelous things. It has been a triumph."

Caspian looked up with reddened eyes. “Then why is it that you seem fated to leave Narnia, and I to always remain?"

Lucy felt a knot tighten in her throat. She, too, had wondered this, in the long months in school, living as a child again with the memories of a woman, swallowing her pride and her wisdom for the sake of less experienced adults, seeing the ruins of their reign thousands of years in their wake.

"I don't know," she said. "It's Aslan's will."

"And you accept it."

She did not reply, not knowing what to say.

Caspian laughed, his eyes full of affection. "It has never even occurred to you to refuse his will. And it is for this that I love you so, Queen Lucy, for you have all the faith I lack myself." His voice grew quieter. “How can one see such wondrous things and then return to life as it was before? To the monotony of duty?"

Lucy looked down at her hands, now rough from seafaring and archery, fingers longer and more slender than they had ever been in England. When they returned, what would they look like? Like a schoolgirl’s, once more, meant for turning pages and sitting quietly folded on her lap? She clenched them into fists, but then stopped herself. "Perhaps there is joy to be found in duty, as well. In your legacy as King.”

"A legacy of irresponsibility, it would seem,” he replied sardonically.

She shot him a look. “You have left Narnia much more than that already.”

“And yet it seems the joy is far less than I had hoped.” He sighed. “I would have learned to find it, perhaps, if I had you at my side."

Lucy put her face in her hands, both to hide her smile of affection and the pain it brought her. "Don't be ridiculous, Caspian."

"I would have wished to wait on you and learn from you. To be fully devoted to you; to offer you my love in any form in which you may take it."

"And what legacy would that be?"

"Queen Lucy’s happiness would have been a great enough triumph."

She looked up at him. He looked less distraught now, but his pain was of a deeper sort, all shame forgotten. She saw now in him a love that she knew would haunt her with its possibilities, haunt her the way Narnia had filled her every dream for months after she left the first two times, fighting against the knowledge that ran deep into her bones.

"Aslan has fated you for greater things,” she said firmly, tearing her gaze away. “Much greater things than me. And you have made me happy enough, in this short time."

"There is more, if you would take it."

A silence fell between them. Outside, she could hear the hushed voices of the crew as they went downstairs to take their victuals. The sky still did not darken, because it never did these days. And both Narnia and England seemed impossibly far away, suddenly—one a dream and one a nightmare, although Lucy suspected she and Caspian would not be able to agree on which was which.

Caspian stood up and walked to the window, staring out at the open sea. He ran a hand through his hair and smoothed his shirt, and when he turned back to look at her he seemed kingly again, calm and collected, if still pained.

"I will not say more, for I do not want to cause you more discomfort,” he said quietly. “But before being King I am a man, and I would serve you as both King and man, if I could." He let out a frustrated breath. "What fell crossroads are these! One of us condemned to remain, and the other to leave."

Slowly, Lucy stood up. The wood felt warm under her feet, and before Caspian’s tall figure, engulfed by clothes much too large for her, she must have seemed small and not at all queenly. But the look in his eyes as they faced each other made her forget it all. They were still young, she thought, but they had already lived so much.

“We do not yet leave for a few hours,” she said quietly. “I would take more.”

Caspian’s lips parted as if to ask her what she meant, but the question died in his lips as he looked into her eyes. He knew who she was, after all. And he knew who she had once been.

“Come, Caspian,” Lucy said, reaching for his hand. “These are your last moments as a man, and my last as a Queen."

He stared at her with wide eyes, and he was so beautiful that for a moment she was tempted to simply drink him in, but then he stepped towards her and reached for her cheek, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she knew.

There was something powerful within her, between them—something that had awakened with the lilies and all the memories they elicited—perhaps the same thing that had awakened the painting and made it speak to Caspian. And so any fear or uncertainty she had felt faded away instantly at his touch. If this was to be her farewell, then there was wisdom to that also. For how could the magic have conspired to bring her and Caspian together on this journey, if only for so limited a time?

Caspian kissed her forehead again, and her hair, and her cheeks, even her throat, before reaching her mouth. His lips were soft and his touch was gentle, and it felt like worship—like being healed, somehow, from the heartbreak she knew was to come.

His hand moved to hold the back of her neck as he kissed her, and she wrapped both her arms around him, breathing in his scent, drowning in his warmth. His lips parted easily for her to taste him—the sea, the lilies, _Narnia_ —and she clutched at his hair as he pulled her even closer.

When his hands moved down her back and lifted the hem of her shirt— _his_ shirt—Caspian stopped, his lips still brushing hers. “Lucy.”

“All of it, Caspian,” she breathed, kissing the corner of his mouth _._ “If you will.”

He smiled, his nose brushing her jaw. “I will.”

They shuffled towards the cabin next door, Caspian locking the door behind them without even looking. It had been _his_ cabin, after all, before she had appeared and taken it from him. In the cabin, the white light was made golden against the paintings and carvings on the wall, flecking Caspian’s eyes with gold. Lucy kissed his throat and his chest as she unbuttoned his shirt, gasping as he ran his fingers up her back under her clothes, low noises escaping his lips. When she pulled the shirt off him, his chest heaved under her palms, luminous and stripped bare, and she stepped back slightly to admire him. Then she stepped back further, until the back of her knees hit the bed, and unbuttoned her own shirt.

He smiled at her, following her, but making no move to remove his trousers. But before Lucy could reach for him, he had fallen to his knees directly before her.

“Your Majesty,” he said, half in jest, half-sincerely, his eyes shining up at her.

Lucy laughed, then gasped in pleasure as he leaned forwards, pressing his lips to her bare stomach. She buried her hands in his hair, and Caspian ran his hands up her calves, up her thighs, until he kissed each hipbone and began to move upwards.

He was so beautiful, so gentle, she thought, as he laid her down on the bed and kissed all the skin he could find. And yet his gentleness belied the taut muscles of a warrior that flexed as he held himself up above her, one hand undressing her and touching her. Despite the sadness in his eyes, he was smiling, and where their skin met she felt a warmth spread and begin to unravel the knot of grief that had been coiling in her chest.

He entered her slowly, standing beside the bed, one hand on her hips and the other pressing her palm to his mouth. He kissed her softly even as she arched off the bed. “Lucy,” he finally whispered hoarsely, sounding both in pain and in awe, and she wrapped her legs around him.

They made love because they were Caspian and Lucy, and because they were a King and a Queen, and because they both had a craving for what could have been but would never be. And as they moved together and she felt his grip tighten, Lucy realized that for all the fierceness of the love she had for Narnia, she had never until this moment known, for sure, that Narnia loved her back.

“We were destined for this,” she told him, as they lay with their limbs tangled with each other, in the last hour before she left. _Not cursed_ , she thought for both their sakes. _Destined_.

“It terrifies me that Narnia might fall out of my own folly, if I am left alone,” he whispered against her collarbone.

 _It terrifies me that if Narnia falls, there is nothing I can do_ , Lucy thought, and buried her face in Caspian’s hair like a prayer. But like Caspian, Narnia was not hers any longer, no matter how much love grew between them. And there was nothing more to do but leave.

x

They left the _Dawn Treader_ an hour later, all flags flying and all shields on display. Caspian watched the coracle as it began to drift away, and he looked like a King once more, wise and powerful, surrounded by his men, his past weakness forgotten. _To Narnia_ , he told Drinian, and Drinian called his men to take up the oars.

And taking a deep breath, Lucy turned away to face the East, as she always had.


	2. Part II

Time didn’t make sense, but then again it never had with Narnia.

The telegram reached Susan on the same afternoon that she returned from America, before she had even unpacked.

SUSAN: COME TO PROFESSOR’S

Susan was now at the age where it was possible to lie about a great many things and get away with it, and lying about Narnia came easy. She had lied about why Edmund became so kind after their time at the Professor’s, about why Lucy had looked through wardrobes for months after, about what they spoke about on all those dinners with the Professor and Aunt Polly. And so, Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie heard something about a weekend in the countryside with a school friend for what was left of the summer, and never noticed the alarm the telegram instilled in their eldest daughter.

Hours later, Susan found herself standing nervously at the train station, to find Peter driving Mrs. Macready’s old horse-drawn carriage, pale-faced and tight-lipped. He’d come from the Professor’s cottage as soon as he’d heard, he told her—but he wouldn’t tell her _what_ he’d heard.

“Edmund and Lucy are at the house,” Peter told her, avoiding all her questions. “The Professor sold it, but the east wing has still got some of the old furniture, and the new owners haven’t moved in yet, so he let us stay for some time. It’s not the same, but it’s something.”

“Why are we here?” she demanded. “You wouldn’t have called me if it wasn’t urgent.”

“It is urgent.”

“Then why not call Mother and Father, too?”

He turned to look at her and she fell silent. The only reason they wouldn’t call their parents—the reason they almost never called them—was when the issue had to do with Narnia. Edmund and Lucy had just gotten back from their last adventure there a few months ago, Susan knew from their letters, and were due back at school in a few weeks. So why would they have to meet _now_?

 _Isn’t it all over?_ She wondered, but did not say out loud.

Edmund was waiting for them in the doorway when they arrived “I don’t want you to be alarmed,” he said very calmly, which only alarmed her more. It was the tone Edmund had used when announced a death in wartime, or when he mentioned the Deep Magic—strength designed to subdue others’ panic.

“Where’s Lucy?” she demanded.

“Inside. But you _must_ stay calm, Susan. It’s not something any of us expected, but it is happening, and she needs—”

“You’re not helping me stay calm.” Susan pushed past him into the house towards the east wing, ignoring Edmund’s sigh and Peter’s protests. Lucy was either deathly sick or in the middle of some terrible Narnian adventure, and she’d rather see it for herself than hear Edmund’s condescending explanations.

But even in her wildest nightmares, Susan could not have expected this.

In the sitting room of the east wing—a half-furnished room with white sheets over most of the furniture—Lucy sat on a couch reading. She looked up expectantly, if a little anxiously, when Susan walked in. And that was when Susan saw it, and froze in the doorway.

Lucy did not smile, but she did not look upset, either. And for the first time, she did not look at all like the sister Susan knew. She was yet a schoolgirl, slender and shorter than Susan—but her belly was swollen, impossible to hide under her dress, one of her hands placed protectively over it.

“It’s Caspian’s,” Lucy said simply, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

x

“ _How could you let this happen?!_ ” Susan turned on Edmund as soon as they left the room. “You’re her brother—you’re supposed to protect her!”

“In case you’ve forgotten,” Edmund said, infuriatingly calm, hands in his pockets. “She’s a Queen of Narnia and she was on the _Dawn Treader_ in that capacity. I’ve no right to tell her what to do any more than I could tell you.”

“She’s a _child._ ”

“She’s older than you like to believe. And even older in Narnia. She knows what she is doing.”

Susan pressed her hands over her mouth, taking deep breaths. “Our sister is having a _Narnian baby_ in _England_ , as a _teenager_.”

“Not just any Narnian baby.”

“ _What?_ ”

“A Narnian Prince. A son of Adam.”

“What does that matter?”

Edmund looked at her almost as if she had disappointed him with her lack of clarity on the subject. “Who brought humans to Narnia in the first place, at the end of the Long Winter? Even when we all thought she was mad?”

Susan stared at him incredulously.

“Lucy. She always knows what she is doing.”

x

“I know we’ll never go back,” Lucy told her as they got back into bed that night. “Aslan told us so. But he also said it wasn’t the end of our journey, or of knowing him. There are things that need to be done, even here in England.”

Susan watched her little sister as Lucy pulled the covers up to her chest, lying sideways and staring at her in the dim light that filtered through the window. The math didn’t make sense; Lucy had only _just_ returned from Narnia two months ago, and yet she seemed nearly nine months pregnant already. But then again, time was always different between both worlds, so why shouldn’t it be so here?

Susan pushed away the worst question, which she knew Lucy did not know the answer to, either— _How long until it’s born?—_ and decided on a gentler statement.

“Lucy, we need to tell Mother,” Susan said, as gently as she could.

Lucy shook her head. “Only the four of us.”

“But we can’t stay here forever. We need to figure out how you’ll continue school, and who’ll look after…”

“Susan.” Lucy’s eyes were wide and meaningful as she stared at her from over the pillow. “No one else will ever meet this baby.”

x

They tried to keep their arguments hidden away from Lucy. Lucy still knew they were happening, of course, but there was no use in having her there. She would respond only in short sentences, saying that she didn’t know all the answers. All she knew was that no one else should know, that the child would be born soon, and that there was nothing to worry about.

“She’s not in the right mental state,” Peter groaned, rubbing his eyes on one of their sleepless nights. “She hasn’t the vision of how this is going to uproot her life— _our_ lives. By the Lion… I can’t bear the thought of telling Mother.”

Susan, as during many nights before, put her face in her hands over the coffee table and ground her heels against the dusty carpet. “She thinks it’s Aslan’s will, Peter. And Edmund seems inclined to agree with her.”

“Well, he does have a point. When has Lucy ever been wrong?”

“When has Aslan ever demanded that teenagers bear Narnian babies in _Spare Oom_?” Susan threw her hands up in the air.

Peter sighed, his face strained with worry. “When have we ever known what Aslan wants, anyway?”

x

The birth, Lucy explained to them over breakfast one day, would have to take place as was the custom of the dryads. None of them knew how to replicate that in England, but there was such certainty in her tone that no one dared to disagree with her. Peter and Susan briefly tried to make the case for a midwife, but their arguments were quickly silenced by the other two. How do you explain a fully-grown baby born only two months after conception?

Edmund, throughout it all, was stoic and trusting. If in their childhood he had been the antagonist to all of Lucy’s plans, he was now her right hand, her ultimate assistant. He was not yet out of school, and yet he pored over any medical books he could find in the Professor’s dusty old trunks with the same care of a physician, and invoked Aslan with the same certainty as Lucy whenever any question arose.

The war had led them to the wardrobe, and Lucy had led them to Narnia, and Aslan had led them to victory. The magic had led them to Caspian, and Caspian had led them to salvation. Now, Lucy and Caspian had led them to _this_ … and with everything they had experienced before, did this not make sense?

Susan found herself staying awake at night, watching her little sister smile in her dreams, her large belly rising and falling with her breath—and she did not know how to feel. She was older, but she had yet to experience anything like what Lucy had experienced; had yet to love anyone in the way Lucy had loved Caspian, much less in between two different worlds.

Lucy spoke little of Caspian, although he was constantly on their minds. But in the few instances where he was mentioned, in relation to the adventures on the _Dawn Treader_ , or even the defeat of Miraz, a strange look came over her face. It was like the thought of Caspian was a weight, not too heavy or painful to bear, but of such monumental importance that it was difficult to put into words.

 _Will she name the child Caspian_ , _if it’s a boy?_ Susan wondered. She supposed Caspian would have thought it amusing, to know that another Caspian from Narnia would wander Spare Oom like he had always wanted to.

x

Lucy had outlined exactly what a dryad birth in England would look like, in simple steps, so when the time came they all sprang into action. Peter gathered all the blankets he could find, Edmund filled a large vase with clear water, and Susan held Lucy’s arm as they walked out onto the forest. There was nothing more to be done, when there were no midwives or physicians, no parents or husbands. There was only Lucy’s will—and through it, they all prayed, the will of Aslan.

Lucy was sweating and white-knuckled, but she held her head high as they made their slow way to the forest. It was just past sunset, the sky going from purple to black behind the treetops. The grass was cool under their bare feet and the breeze was gentle but warm, and Lucy had a far-off look in her eyes, like she was remembering instructions she had received long ago. She reached for her belly, and Susan _saw_ the contraction as it racked her sister’s body.

“It is happening,” she whispered, and smiled, although it did nothing to quell her sister’s fear.

They lay Lucy down over blankets in the grass in a clearing, the deep red sky making way for bright stars, which shone in Lucy’s eyes as she threw her head back with a low gasp of pain. Susan had watched births before when she was Queen, as it had been an honor to witness the births of Fauns, an event so rare it often brought with it weeks of celebrations. But this was vastly different, and it was England.

On her knees in the grass, her summer dress now full of grass stains, Susan looked to her brothers. Peter held Lucy’s head on his lap, his hands firm as he pressed a palm to her forehead, murmuring brotherly encouragements. Edmund had taken off his shoes, and barefoot on the grass he, too, seemed in his element as he brought water to her and pressed a comforting hand to Lucy’s sweating palm.

There was nothing left to do but fulfill their prescribed roles. And so, Susan took a shuddering breath and for the first time in many years, allowed the cool breeze to waft over her body, allowed herself to feel how she had all those years ago: one with the forest, one with her people, one with Narnia.

She washed her hands in the clear water, closed her eyes, chanted what she could remember of the dryads’ ancient songs. And as she sang, Lucy stared up at the sky and grasped Edmund’s hand on one side, and a fistful of grass on the other, and Susan could swear, later, that from the depths of the earth there rose a melody to accompany her singing—something _from_ the earth, as if somewhere, a portal had opened, and for a moment both worlds had blurred to watch Narnian seed in Spare Oom soil bloom.

There were no physicians here, no medicines to dull the pain, no midwives to offer council. Only the Four Kings and Queens, under the light of the evening stars, and the chant Susan had nearly succeeded in forgetting. She held her sister with steady hands, and sang and whispered, and Lucy pushed, eyes wide open, as if she saw something in the sky that none of them could see.

It was so that the child was born, under starlight in a place that was not Narnia but might not have been England, either. Small and crying, he emerged into the world and into Susan’s arms, a fragile, impossible thing.

Susan wrapped him in blankets and looked down at him. And as she stared at the tiny boy’s face, with his impossibly perfect features, Susan thought she understood, suddenly, all of Lucy’s devotion—beyond all worlds, beyond all logic.

She placed the child in Lucy’s arms, and Lucy enveloped him, but Susan could not speak. In the baby’s eyes she had seen Narnia, and there was nothing more to say.

x

The baby grew quickly—much too quickly. It was to be expected, after all, Edmund said, although who knew what it boded for the future. Within a week, he could sit, which Susan knew was not quite right—babies in England couldn’t grow that fast, could they?

But Lucy did not seem phased by everyone else’s worries. England’s constraints on time were far from her mind. Whenever she spoke to her child, it was about Narnia; whenever she sang to him, it was Narnian songs. And whenever they went outside, Lucy was barefoot, hair flowing in the wind.

Susan, for her part, could not help her overwhelming love for the little boy. She found herself rocking him long after he had already fallen asleep, stroking the soft golden hair on his head, trying new tricks to get a smile out of him. And so she made herself stop thinking about what all of it meant, anymore. Instead, she spent her days helping Lucy feed him, bathe him, put him to sleep. She lay on the grass as Lucy played with him on a blanket on sunny days, dangled her feet in the stream as Lucy placed her son’s little toes in the water, laughing and watching his face for new, budding expressions.

Peter tried to reason with Lucy, to persuade her to register the child, to name him. But Lucy would not.

“That _was_ the custom in Narnia,” Peter said sheepishly one night, after Lucy had already gone to bed. “To wait a year before naming a child.”

And so they let the matter go.

But it felt as if they were waiting for something, and they _had_ to be, because they were running out of time. The Professor, upon Peter’s request, had arranged for some sort of alibi to explain Edmund and Lucy’s absence from school; Susan, as far as anyone knew, was still visiting the same friend; and the new owners of the house had yet to set a date for their arrival. But it had been more than a month, now, and with no future in sight, the future seemed increasingly impractical.

x

It was nearly a month after school had begun that Lucy stood up abruptly in the middle of their games on the lawn, and began to walk away. Susan, Peter and Edmund, who had been dozing off in the sun, sat up to find her disappearing into the line of trees, the baby in her arms.

“Where is she going?” Peter asked, scrambling to his feet. But Lucy did not look back.

When they finally caught up with her, she was standing in the middle of the same clearing where she had given birth, the child in her arms. Both of them were silent, staring at a spot between two trees with unnerving focus. But before Susan could ask what was happening, there was a sudden stir—like wind through the doorway, like the shifting of the trees, like wooden doors parting. The space between the trees seemed to shimmer, then expand—and on the other side, there was a room.

The room seemed far away, yet so clear that Susan suspected if she stepped towards it, she might step onto stone floors and be surrounded by velvet tapestries. Because the room was unmistakably Narnian, and unmistakably royal: gold and red fabrics, and a large bed upon which lay an older man with greying hair, his eyes weighed down with such grief that even with the strangeness of the circumstances, all Susan could wonder in that moment was what terrible things must have come to pass to cause such pain.

For the first time, Lucy stirred again, taking a step forward. The baby gurgled and babbled in her arms, and the man looked up. He did not seem to see any of the Pevensies except for Lucy, and his eyes lit up with a pained kind of joy that shot through Susan’s heart.

“Lucy?”

“It’s me,” she said with a sad smile. “From across the flowers.”

Caspian the Tenth laughed, then, even as weak as he looked. There were tears in his eyes, and he reached weakly towards the space between the trees that divided them, although he seemed to already know it would be fruitless. “I suppose it can’t be that easy, can it?”

Lucy shook her head.

“None of it has been,” Caspian said. “Lucy… my son.” He turned his face away, suddenly, his face constricting with grief. “He is gone. He has slipped through my fingers. And now there is nothing, and Narnia has no legacy. I have failed.”

“You have not,” Lucy said, and though there were tears in her eyes her voice sounded strong and clear. “You have left me another legacy. A Narnian Prince.”

And Caspian looked through the portal at his child, whose hands were yet small, with wide eyes and soft cheeks, and he cried with joy and heartbreak.

The shimmering image faded soon after, but in Caspian’s body there had been new strength and renewed hope, and when Lucy turned back to her siblings her eyes were shining with purpose.

x

But news came the next day, in the form of a letter from Eustace to Edmund. It ended:

_We got Rilian back alright, but I’m afraid it was too late. There’s no nice way to say this, really. Caspian passed away, Edmund. He was old, and quite shaken by everything that had happened. We’re just glad he got to see his son before he died… and Aslan gave him a bit of a gift at the end, too. I think he enjoyed it._

Edmund and Peter argued for some time about the wisdom of sharing the news with Lucy, but in the end there was no point. Lucy took one look at Edmund and knew he was hiding something, and so he was forced to hand over the letter.

She read it many times, from beginning to end, and then fell silent for a long time, staring out the window, holding the sleeping baby to her chest.

“I thought Caspian was a reason for all this,” Susan couldn’t help saying.

“It must be a different reason,” Lucy replied, and turned away.

“Maybe there isn’t a reason,” Susan said softly. “Maybe he’s just a baby.”

But Lucy said nothing.

x

A week later, Susan awoke in the middle of the night to see Lucy leaving bed. The moon was high in the sky and the light filtered through the thin curtains, and through bleary eyes she saw her sister pick the baby up and set him down on the ground.

Susan sat up and looked at them. The little boy was standing—no, _walking_ , and he smiled up at her, as wide-awake as if it had been morning.

“Go back to sleep, Susan,” Lucy said quietly. The child took a few more steps, stepping around her, and moved towards the door.

“Where—where is he going?”

Susan felt the chill of horror before she could recognize the feeling, and when it finally registered she nearly fell back with the force of the realization. “What are you doing?”

Lucy closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them there was a look of absolute conviction in her eyes. “He was never for this world, Susan.” And she turned and followed the child out of the room.

A cry left Susan before she could stop herself. But she didn’t _want_ to stop herself. She slammed open Edmund’s door until he was awake, following after them. But Lucy was not stopping, no matter how Susan begged her to stop, reaching for her arms. And the child was far ahead of them.

At the bottom of the stairs, the baby stopped, too small to reach for the door—did he _know_ how to open a latch? Susan gripped Lucy’s arm, but Lucy didn’t seem to see her. She had eyes only for the little boy, as he stood in his tiny nightdress, reaching for the latch.

Peter appeared then, rubbing his eyes, blocking the space between the child and the door. “What’s going on?”

“Open the door, Peter,” Lucy said.

“Peter, no!”

“Open the door.”

Susan felt, for a split second, that they had been saved from Lucy’s tragic destiny. But Peter, standing frozen besides the doorway, looked down to the child and was stricken suddenly. Pale-faced and weak, he reached for the handle and opened the door. He would later say, in between heavy silences, that it had been like looking directly at Caspian.

Without stopping, the boy toddled out through the doorway into the cold darkness. A breeze ruffled his hair, a hand stopped Susan from rushing. Lucy, suddenly tall and regal, immutable, the Queen that Susan had only seen perhaps once or twice, even in Narnia, watched on as her child ran away.

They followed after them, barefoot and in their pajamas, out into the warm night, following the tiny, pale silhouette as it made for the trees. A quiet horror had spread in Susan’s chest, so constricting she had no words to say; or perhaps the horror was in the knowledge that nothing she said could possibly alter what was about to happen.

The baby did not seem to grow tired. Although he ran, he never slipped or fell, nor did he look back at his mother. He simply trotted on in his tiny nightshirt, little hands curled into small fists from the effort waving in the air as he stepped over rocks or twigs. He was not afraid of the forest, not even in the dark. After all, he was a Narnian child, and Narnian children never feared trees.

In the clearing, the shimmer had appeared again between the trees—a gaping doorway of white light.

The little boy stopped, and Lucy caught up with him. She reached down for his hand and he gripped it but did not look at her, seemingly transfixed by the light. And in that moment, Susan _knew_ , with staggering finality, what Lucy had been waiting for all along.

Her sister had never hesitated, but Lucy hesitated now. She lingered. Eyes wide open, she drank in the sight of her child with a kind of wildness—instinctive, protective, _human_. She felt his tiny hand with her fingers, pressed her mouth to his forehead, breathed in the scent of him. He had always smelled like lilies.

And then, Lucy stepped away.

The baby took one, two, three steps—and then walked through the archway, disappearing into the bright light. And the door closed, disappearing as if it had never been there.

The four of them stood frozen on the grass, staring out at the darkness, which had never seemed so gaping. Lucy’s jaw was clenched tightly, her hands in fists at her sides, but she said nothing. There was still something in her eyes—as if she was looking for a sign, a glimpse of gold, a word from Aslan. But there was nothing.

Behind them, Peter turned around, heaving, and leaned against a tree as if he was going to be sick. Edmund stood, unmoving, a haunted look on his face.

Susan, weak-kneed, felt herself sink into the ground, tears springing from her eyes

“Let it be,” Lucy said, still staring into the darkness. “I asked for nothing but the good of Narnia. It is as it should be.”

x

At dawn, they were all still awake, wandering the house like ghosts. Susan found Peter outside, staring towards the forest with reddened eyes.

“ _That_ was his purpose?” Susan asked, sitting on the ground beside him. “How can Narnia demand so much?”

“Because it’s Lucy,” Peter said. His face was twisted with anguish, but he brushed his tears away, clenching his jaw as he leaned against the stone wall. “No one but her could have done it.”

“Just because she _would_ do it doesn’t mean it should have happened. This was too much.” Tears fell down her cheeks, although she had thought she had none left. “This was unspeakably cruel.”

“You heard her before,” Peter said quietly. “There’s a reason for it. She wouldn’t have been chosen otherwise. She’ll be alright.”

Susan stared at him incredulously. “No mother can recover from that. _I_ can’t recover, and I’m not even his mother.” She pulled her knees up to her chest, pressed her face against her hands. “It’s too much, Peter. So much pointless suffering—and all for Narnia? I can’t bear it.”

Peter said nothing, because what could he say? Instead, he sank down to the ground beside her and they sat there for hours, pretending that there was nothing wrong with the silence inside the house.

x

They went back to London the next day, unable to stand being in the same space where the child had been born, had laughed, had cried. Lucy had shed no tears since the baby’s parting, but stood looking out the window at the bright whiteness of the clouds for a very long time. Susan thought, as they boarded the train towards London, that she somehow seemed younger again; as if the baby’s absence had brought her back to her real age, to being a child.

Peter was right, in the end. Slowly but surely, Lucy recovered. It was reminiscent of that very first loss, when they left the wardrobe and left decades’ worth of a life behind, when memories flared painfully and often, but like that first loss, it all eventually faded.

At times, Susan forgot that Lucy was ever anything more than a girl. But in rare moments, Lucy got that far-away look in her eyes again, and Susan could not bear to look at her. Lucy recovered, but Susan did not.

But forgetting was the one thing about Narnia that had always been easy. It took a much greater effort to remember.


	3. Part III

In the last days of Narnia, the night was dark and cold and all the man’s enemies had left him. There was no one left to witness him tied to a tree, whispering to himself in despair, crying to the heavens over the kingdom that was on the brink of desolation.

"Let me be killed,” he prayed. “I ask nothing for myself. But come and save all Narnia!"

And so Tirian, the Last King of Narnia, ropes cutting into his limbs and his reign now seemingly lost to him, closed his eyes and felt a stir—like wind through the doorway, like the shifting of the trees, like wooden doors parting—and followed the call of his blood, to his home, fulfilling his destiny.

Opening his eyes, he looked about him at the seven people sitting around the table. There was an old man and an old woman, and two young men, and a boy and a girl. But directly in front of him sat a fair-haired young woman, whose eyes now lit up with the unstoppable fire of recognition—

Tirian’s eyes widened, and he spoke the word with instant recognition.

“Mother.”

Lucy Pevensie smiled, her eyes shining with tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You absolutely _must_ read "White Lilies", which I did not write, but which brings everything full circle in an incredible way.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [White Lilies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26723425) by [WingedFlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedFlight/pseuds/WingedFlight)




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